This invention relates to the sensory evaluation of smoking products containing a body of smokable material. The invention is especially suited to the evaluation of cigarettes, cigarillos and cigars but it may also be used for evaluating smokable materials which are consumed in pipes and similar devices.
In the development of smoking products intended for commercial production, it is customary to conduct sensory evaluations of such products during their development phase to determine whether or not the products possess those attributes which are desired by the consumers of the products. Among the sensory evaluations utilized are those performed by small panels of judges who are trained to characterize the attribute intensities of the products. Such sensory evaluations, known as descriptive testing, require the judges to apply uniform terms to describe the product and to be thoroughly familiar with sensory evaluation techniques.
Descriptive testing has heretofore involved the monadic evaluation of smoking products which are smoked ad libitum by sensory panelists or judges who then indicate the intensity of one or more sensory attributes using a predesignated range of intensity ratings. Such testing, however, does not compensate for variables introduced by the judges or panelists. For example, smokers who base their evaluation of the intensity of a particular attribute on the first few puffs may reach a different conclusion than smokers who base their evaluation on the last few puffs of a smoking product being evaluated. This variable can be minimized by obtaining intensity ratings for a particular attribute at spaced points along a rod of smokable material. Although the technique of obtaining a plurality of intensity ratings for the same attribute during the smoking provides a more accurate sensory evaluation of the smoking product, that technique does not address certain other variables which may influence the sensory evaluations made.
It is known that consumers of smoking products develop personal styles and habits for smoking such products to derive the most satisfaction from the use of the products. Thus, some smokers may take small puffs of short duration while other smokers may take large puffs of long duration. The frequency of the puffs taken as well as the degree of inhalation of smoke into the lungs may also vary. These and other differences in the way smoking products are used by consumers make it difficult to develop smoking products designed to appeal to the greatest number of smokers. The differences in how a product is smoked can also influence sensory evaluations due to the individual smoking styles of the panelists. Ideally, the evaluation of a smoking product would be performed by a group of panelists having very similar smoking styles with such smoking styles being representative of a substantial segment of the smoking population. This would require assembling groups of panelists whose smoking styles coincide generally with defined groups within the consuming public. It is not very practical to pursue this idealistic goal due to the wide variations in smoking styles found among smokers and the difficulty in defining the characteristics which distinguish groups of smokers by their smoking styles. Accordingly, there continues to be a need for a sensory evaluation method which is widely applicable to the evaluation of smoking products but which minimizes the influence of variables relating to individual smoking styles of smokers.